


a festival, the sheriff, and one very cool sword

by mistyheartrbs



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Concerts, F/F, Festivals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-25 00:17:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20023393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistyheartrbs/pseuds/mistyheartrbs
Summary: The Ghost River Music Festival returns to Purgatory after about twenty years.Reactions are mixed.





	a festival, the sheriff, and one very cool sword

**Author's Note:**

> i went to this very small town for a family thing where the population is usually, like, seventy people, except there was a big music festival happening and the town reminded me of we's purgatory so i thought "haha, what if there was a music festival in purgatory" but then i remembered....there was...so this happened

The Ghost River Music Festival was not a regular occurrence. 

This was mostly due to the tendency of concertgoers going missing, usually never to be found, and also because Purgatory was too damn cold for most people anyway. But money and power always had their way in the end, and if the mayor wanted to bring non-demon-related attention to the town then there would be non-demon-related attention, which was all to say that there actually was a reason for Sheriff Haught to be standing on the Earp Homestead's porch, explaining to the last of the curse's heirs why she was needed to defend the area, just in case there were more monsters that showed up, again, and they needed her to save the town, again. 

Wynonna, unsurprisingly, was delighted by the fact that Nicole needed her for something and less delighted by the fact that it mostly consisted of standing outside for hours. 

"I broke the curse, Haughtstuff." As if to punctuate her point, baby Alice giggled happily from the other room, watching Jeremy tinker with some gadget or another. "The revenants are all gone." 

"Yes," Nicole began, pinching her temples, "but there are still _other things._ Werewolves and murder trees and God knows what else, and I tried to talk the mayor out of it but this festival is happening whether we like it or not, so . . ." 

"You need me." Wynonna grinned, rocking back and forth on her heels. Nicole groaned. 

_"Yes._ I need you. So that nobody in town dies." 

"Say it again."

"What?"

"Say that you need my help." 

"You know, if you weren't my girlfriend's sister-"

"-and your best friend-"

"-and my best friend, I'd think you were insufferable." 

"But you're stuck with me." Wynonna folded her arms. "So you need my help for this . . . festival, or whatever, and when is it?" 

"This weekend." 

"Jesus, that soon?" 

"They don't tell me these things either." 

"Right, so, this weekend, and I'm just supposed to stand guard in case anything tries to mess with the peace." 

"Exactly." 

"And . . . how big is this festival, exactly?"

***

The answer, as it turned out, was _big._ Never mind that Purgatory was certifiably in the middle of nowhere - tourists came in droves, overtaking what little vacant space the town had.

(Waverly had very firmly shut down Doc's suggestion of putting the homestead and/or the barn up as an "Air Bee and Bee," but that didn't stop several trailers from parking in their front lawn)

Bakeries that usually had three customers on a good day suddenly had lines running out the door. Strangers were everywhere, camping out and watching as the stages were set up, put together piece by piece. Waverly surveyed the scene as Nicole took notes on a clipboard, amazed and a bit overwhelmed. 

"They haven't had this in twenty years, you know," Waverly said. A dog poked its head out of the back of a truck. "It used to be a reoccurring thing, but then complaints got out and they shut it down." 

"Yeah." Nicole licked her lips, not quite looking in any specific direction. The pen in her hand flicked back and forth, back and forth, leaving little slashes of blue ink on her palms. "I read the files."

"Are you okay?" Waverly took the pen, handed it back immediately, just to stop the motion. 

"I'm fine." It didn't take an empath (said empath was currently helping set up with the amps with his boyfriend) to know that she was lying. Waverly resolved to confront her about it later, when they weren't in a giant field full of people. 

"It's crazy that all these bands are coming to Purgatory, anyway," she rambled on, hoping to change the subject, hoping to make things less awkward. "Have you seen the guest list? There're, like, _thirty_ different groups coming. Popular ones, too! Musical royalty, you know, comparatively speaking." People that one wouldn't generally expect to show up in deeply haunted rural Canada, she meant, but didn't say it aloud. There was still enough love for this town that she didn't feel like insulting it. 

"It is." Nicole scanned the clipboard blankly, nodding at bits of it. "Things seem to be in order. Meet you at Shorty's in a few hours?"

"Sounds perfect." 

***

Considering how often the place had been trashed - about once a month, give or take, enough that someone had put up a "Days Since Last Bar Fight Or Other Destructive Event" sign - Shorty's was in good shape, and Waverly ruminated over this as she waited, tracing a scratch in one of the tables with her finger. 

Of course, it seemed like another destructive event was on the horizon, what with the dozens of festivalgoers crowding it, but she tried not to think of that. If something _was_ going to happen, it'd probably be of the drunken tourist variety and not the work of some centuries-old monster. Hopefully. 

"Waverly." Nicole stood like a vision in the double doors, sun backing her.

"You made it!"

"Yeah." Nicole padded over to the table, set down her hat. "Pretty much everything's set up now - Wynonna's out there with Peacemaker. It's still a sword."

"I think it's always going to be a sword." 

"I know. It's ridiculous." She paused. "Pretty effective, though. I think some people got scared off just seeing her with it." 

"Yeah." Waverly paused, reached the end of the grooves in the table. "What's wrong, really?"

"Nothing." Nicole set her shoulders, looked out at a flyer posted on the wall listing all the different acts. Some of them were bluegrass bands, the kind of thing that Doc listened to, but a little bit below were simply people's names, other titles she didn't know, some band called _Cement Addiction._ Little cartoon guitars all along the edges were interspersed with equally cartoony ghosts. Whoever designed the posters had a sense of humor, at least. _Back for the first time in nearly 20 years!_ it said.

"Really?" Waverly gulped, and the pieces suddenly clicked together with alarming certainty. 

"It's just . . . stressful, is all. I don't want more people dying on my watch." 

"You're doing amazing." Waverly placed her hand on Nicole's, gentle, tentative. She held it tightly. They both stayed quiet for a moment, then, and Waverly took a deep breath. "This is the same festival where you almost . . ." She couldn't finish the sentence. "Isn't it?"

"Yeah." 

"Oh." More quiet, then, at least between them - tourists rowdily ordered drinks all around them, laughing and dancing and jumping around, all just waiting. "I'm so sorry." 

"It's fine." Nicole inhaled, exhaled, held Waverly's hand tighter. 

"We can go together if you're not busy." Waverly swung their hands back and forth, relishing in the normalcy of the motion. She didn't often think about how her hand was still new, relatively, grown from demon possession just a few years ago, but she thought about it now. It was nice to know that she could still hold Nicole like this, without any difference. "Even if something shows ip, it won't stand a chance against an angel and Purgatory's sheriff." 

"Ha, yeah." 

"Or we could not go and just have a monster movie marathon at the homestead." Nicole sniffed in response, lips quirking upward into a hint of a smile.

They stayed like that for a while, though it could've just been for a few minutes, comfortable as anything. Waverly felt Bulshar's - _her_ ring humming against Nicole's skin, content in whatever way a supernatural piece of jewelry could be content. It was a strange little world they inhabited, but it was theirs, and that was enough. 

***

There was not much that could be waxed poetic about the Ghost River Music Festival. 

The ground was trampled to dirt and mud, trash cans full to bursting with beer bottles, groups of tourists languishing on towels and others using the towels as blankets, clearly underprepared for the weather. The music was loud and not really that good, but everyone was having a good time and nobody had died of a demon attack (yet) so that was something, at least. 

"I never went to these when I was a kid," Nicole admitted, walking around the premises under the pretense of making sure it was all under control. She'd have fit right in as a patron, though, her Stetson hat covering enough of her face that it was hard to make out who she was. Waverly strolled right beside her. "I heard about them a lot, but I never wanted to go."

"Too many people?" 

"Something like that." 

"Hey, you two made it!" Wynonna toted Peacemaker - still a sword, still very cool and very stupid - over her shoulder, clearly having the time of her life. "All's clear, nothing evil to report, unless you count that bumper sticker that says 'Paddle Faster, I Hear Banjos!'" 

"Don't be rude," Waverly chided. 

"I don't even know what that sticker's supposed to _mean."_ Wynonna looked around, tapping her foot in time with the rock ballad blasting from the stage. "They're out of luck anyway. There're banjos everywhere." 

"It's nice, though." Waverly squeezed Nicole's hand tighter. "We're safe." A woman who couldn't have been over twenty finished her set with a slam of her electric guitar. 

"Thank you, Purgatory!" she bellowed, fist pumped in the air. "We are Gay Detergent and Crooked Effect, what a show!" Her partner - another woman, probably another college student, bowed too. 

"You think there'll be another one?" Wynonna continued to wonder, thumping her hand on Peacemaker's hilt in place of clapping. "The crowd seems pretty amped up. They'll wanna come back." 

"And we'll be here when they do." Waverly squeezed Nicole's hand tighter, thought of how this was an open space and not a cluster of trees or a horrible, horrible garden, thought of how this was all she needed. 

"All of us." Nicole tipped her hat back, looked up at the sky. She seemed at peace, in a way she hadn't been since possibly before Bulshar, such a long time ago, now. 

Waverly's heart felt open, and she breathed in the pungent scent of booze and mud and thousands of people watching that stage and she smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> the sticker wynonna is talking about is real and i don't understand it either
> 
> those of you who've read my other fics might recognize the cameo towards the end...


End file.
